I’ve seen and read a couple TMA fics where the power of love makes Elias decide not to go through with his Ritual, and I’m not ragging on that because the power of ‘I can fix him’ is fun. However, I kinda want to write something where Elias loves family/friends/a lover/whatever, and still ends the world. Why would he give up his plans for love? After all, he’s doing this so that someone else can’t complete a Ritual first, and make things worse. He wouldn’t want his loved ones to suffer under some other, uncontrollable Fear! (Is the world he makes any better than a world ruled by any other fear? No. Yes. It is for him.) And his devotion to The Beholding is, after all, his oldest relationship.